Mommy Pod helps techies who need to pump breast milk

(L-R) Tina Lee and Anica John, co-founders of Mommy Pod Moblie talk in the kitchen of a converted RV on Friday, Sept. 11, 2015 in San Francisco, Calif. The RV acts as an "experimental" mobile breast milk pumping station which is operating for the first time outside the Tech Inclusion 2015 conference.

New moms at tech conferences have been sent to strange places — storage closets, faraway bathrooms, nurses stations and parking lots — when they need to pump their breast milk.

Tina Lee, a mother of two and founder of MotherCoders, said she’s heard horror stories from friends, colleagues and strangers. Not to mention those times she had to sanitize her own pump in a communal microwave and then make do in a public bathroom with dried blood on the floor.

She hung hand-sewn curtains to give the RV a gauzy glow, laid out pump holders, hand sanitizer, fresh towels and free candy and coconut water. Last but not least, she put out a hand-drawn sign: “Mobile breast pump truck! Join us!”

Breastfeeding has many well-established short-term benefits for babies, and some studies suggest those benefits — better immune systems, higher IQs — may persist into adulthood.

Photo: Nathaniel Y. Downes, The Chronicle

Sepideh Nasiri, a speaker at Tech Inclusion, walks past the sign meant to direct recent mothers to the Mommy Pod RV on Friday, Sept. 11, 2015 in San Francisco, Calif. The RV acts as an "experimental" mobile breast milk pumping station which is operating for the first time outside the Tech Inclusion 2015 conference.

Sepideh Nasiri, a speaker at Tech Inclusion, walks past the sign...

Nearly 93 percent of newborn infants in California breastfeed, according to 2011 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with more than 63 percent continuing to do so at 6 months and about 39 percent at 1 year.

But due to limited maternity leave, most first-time mothers who work through their pregnancies return to their jobs within three months of having a baby, according to census data.

The problem, Lee said, is that although mothers are encouraged by doctors and researchers to continue breastfeeding even after they return to work, they’re often not given the time, space or accommodations to do it.

“We, as a society, just haven’t talked about this,” she said. “We haven’t normalized it either. You don’t see (women nursing) in movies, you don’t see it in the media, you don’t see it at all unless someone does it right in front of you. So it gets relegated to this taboo subject that we don’t discuss.”

If workplaces are bad, Lee said, tech and professional conferences are even worse.

In May, organizers of the TEDWomen conference, meant to celebrate the accomplishments of women and girls around the world, asked author Jessica Jackley to leave the Monterey event with her nursing 5-month-old baby because of TED’s “no kids allowed” policy.

“How are you going to have a conference about women and not allow nursing mothers with infants?” said Lee, who said the Jackley incident was her inspiration for the Mommy Pod. “It’s one of the most fundamental things women do: We’re mothers.”

Before the Mommy Pod was unveiled Friday, conference organizers Galvanize and Change Catalyst, whose focus is diversity in tech, sent an e-mail to let people know that Lee’s mobile pump truck would be there.

Even before the RV was fully set up, Lee said, at least one mother told her she’d be by at lunchtime. Several others not attending Friday’s conference have started to make requests: Could she bring the Mommy Pod to Dreamforce next week? How about other tech conferences in the Bay Area or some out of state?

“I would love to turn the Mommy Pod into a real thing, but I need to make sure that it’s financially sustainable and not just me out here in an RV that isn’t even mine,” she said. “I’m hoping conferences will see this and offer to sponsor a Mommy Pod at their events. It makes so much sense. And it reduces so much stress for women who are otherwise thinking, ‘Oh no, where am I going to find a place to pump?’”